tsquare

I don't presume to speak for alfa nor the MEC for that matter, but my guess referring to the company (whom I do not speak for either) But I can pretty much guarantee you that they are not gonna sit around wringing their hands waoting on us to join the party. They will move on.

tsquare

I'd put the chances of Carl honestly answering that at slightly less than the congress passing a budget in Obama's first term..

Nice try though.

seamonster

I have not been reading the forums over the holiday weekend but would like to through something into the pot. In my extended family, I have some people on the management side of labor, big business and not applebees. I showed them parts of the TA and the change from our old contract. They laughed at how little we receive with the leverage we had. They had been casually reading about the Delta news for awhile, because I am a pilot with Delta.

Before all of the YES voters go running to the polls. Talk to people who are not in aviation, both in management and labor. They will give you the correct reality check. Management wins BIG with this one and we, as Mongo would say,” are just pawns in where choo choo go”

FmrFreightDog

And sense reserves are staffed for the summer months, reserve head count (and thus overall head count) decreases. Having a hard time understanding why people can't see this!

PilotFrog

I actually had a trip and am now way behind. Im too lazy to go back and read everything as I'm in the middle of moving, but I do have a burning question I haven't seen the answer to.

In the TA WHAT is the penalty to Delta for exceeding the ratio. As far as I recall there is also a ratio between the JV members for Atlantic flying. I also remember the window for compliance was just recently changed with no MEMRAT.

I hypothesize that Delta knows it will probably one day be out of compliance with the ratio of mainline vs. DCI and will come to DALPA before they have any idea it might happen and ask for a little give and take and BAM our hard fought section scope is weakened by an MOU.

Oooo run on sentence.

Klondike Bear

Where are the reps in Detriot set up? My flight out is delayed so I wanted to ask some questions.

DeadHead

Pushing for a 5% reduction n profit sharing should be a pretty good indicator to all that DAL is looking to make a hefty profit this year.
I'm sure there forecast as of now probably puts them just over the $2.5 billion dollar range. The 4% increase in pilot payroll maybe the extra few million to keep profits under that $2.5 billion dollar mark.

That's a jump in profit sharing of $250 million if management makes $2.5 billion or more. I'm not saying the entire business plan is structured around that, but I'm sure it's definitely something they are looking at.

I think we, as pilots, need to cautious about voting this thing in to quickly.
That in itself isn't a reason to say NO, just something to be weary about.

Since I bring that up, what kind of possible timeline, barring a typical section 6 negotiation timeline, could we expect if we vote it down and have the negotiators sit back down to revise the TA?
I have hard time believing both sides will scrap the whole thing without trying to sweeten it a little in hopes to get it through.

slowplay

A contract is a contract...man that brings up bad memories. Any lessons to be learned from the rest of your statment?


As I said previously, it's not their only option. Delta can proceed with us or without us. Some guys here think Delta's only option is with us. Why would management spend more money than they want/have to if Delta has options?

ALPA has never said that Delta will keep all of the 50 seaters. Delta has a path without us and will significantly shrink the number of DCI 50 seaters. That path is slower and has additional risk, but doesn't reduce the 50 seat count nearly as low as the TA. They've already laid the groundwork for keeping 50 seat flying (PCL bankruptcy agreement) and have started a CF-34 engine lease program from other airline previously grounded CRJ-100/200 to delay/defer maintenance on Delta engines.

I don't recall if you were one of the ones worried about "pump and dump", but our current PWA would allow Delta management to do that much more easily as it doesn't have a block hour ratio. Also, 737-900's aren't included as small narrowbody a/c in our TA (just B717/A319), under the current PWA it doesn't matter what the a/c is. Over the next 3 years we have 170+ aircraft announced for delivery. We only need to increase fleet size by about 70 aircraft for Delta to convert 70 to 76 seaters. The 70 seaters begin coming off lease at the end of 2014.

Remember, Delta has multi-party deals going on. They need new/revised contracts from Bombardier and/or Embraer, GE, the development banks of Canada and/or Brazil and various DCI carriers to get to where they want to be. We're the quickest path to get leverage on all those players simultaneously, but management still has leverage without us.

The manufacturers need to produce aircraft (look at their order backlogs). The countries where those manufacturers are based and the aircraft are financed need jobs.


As described above, management has options. You seem to be thinking in a binary manner when it comes to DAL/ALPA but recognize their flexibility when it comes to DCI. I get that you don't like the result of this TA. What I don't get is the difference in your logic and argument when it's about your company and contract and not somebody else.

Cogf16

"Right to privacy"??? Are you saying that an employer doesn't have the right to "enquire" into the well being of an employee? Let's face it, there is a small % of the pilot group that abuse sick leave. This is who the company wants to target. If you don't abuse sick leave, you have nothing to worry about. I have been called once in 23 years about sick leave but I have called them to explain a "multiple" sick call or one that touches a vacation a couple of times. IMO, this is reasonable and NOTHING to worry about.

dragon

Guys,

Commuted home yesterday. While this in itself is not noteworthy, especially for those of you who get to live in base, what is interesting is the aircraft I was on.

I commuted on an E70 (travelnet code). It was a comfortable ride (seated in an aisle seat in coach with a passenger next to me). We both had elbow room and except for having to check my big crew bag, there was plenty of room in the overhead - lots of pax had big bags up there!

The real problem was I flew LGA-DFW. That's a mainline route (or should be). So, we put a comfortable airplane on a mainline route with lower crew costs how is this not a win for the company. It looks like a Delta plane and doesn't have any of the negatives as the CRJ-700 (cramped) so the passengers don't notice. It had young, energetic crew and good service.

This reaffirmed my view on section one of the TA. I just can't see having these planes flown by subcontractors. We have rates for them and I think DAL actually owns a lot of them. By giving away more large RJs, we really are selling our jobs.